Java Jolts

Whether you've decided to do a home office fulltime, halftime or sometime, another question you need to ask yourself is what working from home means to you? What kinds of time sacrifices are you willing to make? Does being home with your children mean you are willing to work at night? What does working from home do to your social schedule, entertaining, or what you call “your time”? If you're not a night owl by nature, can coffee or exercise help you adjust your body clock? Are you willing to work at night?

Just as in a corporate office, time management might mean having to attend a meeting instead of getting in a few hours on a pressing project, working from home necessitates flexibility. It helps you feel less frustrated by these kinds of sacrifices if you can remember times when a long-winded supervisor kept everyone in a meeting or the office gossip trapped you in the hallway to discuss the latest scuttlebutt. Time is managed—and wasted—in both corporate and home offices. Personally, we'd rather “waste” time having a chocolate chip cookie and story time break than another meeting with 10 colleagues talking and no one truly listening … and nothing productive really getting done besides griping.